Among those believed to be on board the submarine is Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a 77-year-old former French navy commander known as “Mr Titanic”.
He has been studying the Titanic for 35 years and has been involved in several submarine expeditions to the wreckage and what have been described as hundreds of hours of observation.
Verified Love Spells in Little Rock, AR (310) 882-6330 Get My Ex-Lover Back
Titanic submarine: rescuers race against time to find missing Titan – live
1. The
Titanic
Titanic submarine: rescuers race against time to find
missing Titan 몭 live
Vessel, which can stay submerged for 96 hours, went missing on
Sunday while carrying five people to wreckage of Titanic
Jamie Grierson
@JamieGrierson
Tue 20 Jun 2023 11.00 BST
Search effort under way for missing sub carrying five people near Titanic wreck – video
01:16
Live feed
Support us
UK UK politics Education Media Society Law Scotland Wales Northern Ireland More
News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle
Sign in
It's your choice
When we make the Guardian available to you online, w
help us to do this. Some are necessary to help our webs
and some are optional but support the Guardian and yo
For instance, we and our partners may store cookies an
personal data, including page visits and your IP address
devices and your online interactions with us to provide,
include personalising content or advertising for you.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the follow
You can find out more in our privacy policy and cookie p
you at any time by going to ‘Privacy settings’ at the bot
Are you happy to accept cookies? To manage your cook
Store and/or access information on a device
Personalised ads and content, ad and content meas
development
2. Key events
25m ago 11.00 BST
A writer who took the Titanic submersible trip last year said he is “not optimistic”
over the search for the missing OceanGate craft.
Mike Reiss told BBC Breakfast communication was also lost during his dive down
to the Titanic.
Reiss said: “I’m not optimistic just because I know the logistics of it. And I know
really again, how vast the ocean is, and how very tiny the craft is.
He added: “So the idea is, if it’s down at the bottom, I don’t know how anyone’s
going to be able to access it, much less bring it back up.
“There is a hope that it’s at, or near, the surface.
“I did three separate dives. I did one dive to the Titanic and two more off the coast
of New York.
“Every time they lost communication and again, this is not a shoddy ship or
anything.”
55m ago 10.30 BST
The search is being led by the US Coastguard 1st District, which is based in Boston,
Massachusetts, where it is currently 5.30am.
Updated at 10.35 BST
2h ago 09.51 BST
Who is the British billionaire explorer missing at sea?
Hamish Harding, 58, is one of the five missing with the OceanGate Expeditions
vessel, which was reported overdue on Sunday evening about 435 miles south of
St John’s, Newfoundland.
3h ago
Opening summary
Show key events only
Are you happy to accept cookies? To manage your cook
where our partners rely on legitimate interests to use y
cookies.
Yes, I’m happy Manage or reject cookies
3. Harding is the chair of the private plane firm Action Aviation. His wife is called
Linda, and he has two sons named Rory and Giles, as well as a stepdaughter
named Lauren and a stepson, Brian Szasz.
As a student, he left Cambridge with a degree in natural sciences and chemical
engineering.
Harding is an aviator, holding an airline transport pilot’s licence and business jet
type ratings, including the Gulfstream G650. He is also a skydiver, was inducted
into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2022, and is a trustee of the Explorers Club.
He also previously worked with the Antarctic VIP tourism company White Desert
to introduce the first regular business jet service to Antarctica.
Harding has made many trips to the south pole and, in 2016, accompanied Buzz
Aldrin, who became the oldest person to reach the south pole at 86. He also went
into space last year with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company.
Harding is the current holder of three Guinness world records, relating to his work
as an adventurer. In 2019, he was commended for the fastest circumnavigation of
the Earth via both poles.
As part of a crew of eight astronauts and aviators in a Qatar executive Gulfstream
G650ER ultra-long-range business jet, Harding led the mission to mark the 50th
anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. He
achieved the feat in 46 hours, 40 minutes and 22 seconds.
In 2021, he achieved the greatest distance covered at full ocean depth and the
greatest duration spent at full ocean depth.
Alongside Victor Vescovo, Harding dove in a two-man submarine to the lowest
point in the world’s oceans, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench, the
Challenger Deep – a depth of about 36,000 ft.
2h ago 09.15 BST
Graham Russell
What can be done to find it?
US and Canadian aircraft are searching the area, as well as large ships, but the
hunt was “complex” because crews do not know if the vessel has surfaced,
meaning they must scour both the surface and the ocean depths, said Rear
4. Admiral John Mauger, first district commander of the US Coast Guard, overseeing
the search-and-rescue operation.
Concannon said officials were working to get a remotely operated vehicle (ROV)
that can reach a depth of 6,000 metres (about 20,000ft) to the site as soon as
possible.
These ROVs are dropped over the side of a vessel, to which it is connected by a
“umbilical cord” that enables a pilot to operate its thrusters and also relay data in
real-time from its sonar and camera systems.
However, the amount of wreckage of the Titanic on the ocean floor means it could
take time to discern what is debris and what is the Titan. The search teams do at
least have a starting point; the vessel’s position would have been tracked until the
moment contact was lost.
The company’s managing director, Mark Butler, told the AP: “There is still plenty
of time to facilitate a rescue mission, there is equipment on board for survival in
this event,” Butler said. “We’re all hoping and praying he comes back safe and
sound.”
3h ago 08.50 BST
Graham Russell
What might have gone wrong?
It is too early to say what has happened but experts have offered several of the
most likely scenarios, from becoming tangled in wreckage of the Titanic, to a
power failure or an issue with the sub’s communications system.
The wreckage of the Titanic, which lies about 3,800 metres (12,500ft) down on the
ocean floor is surrounded by debris from the disaster more than a century ago.
“There are parts of it all over the place. It’s dangerous,” said Frank Owen OAM, a
retired Royal Australian Navy official and submarine escape and rescue project
director.
Contact was lost one hour 45 minutes into the Titan’s trip, suggesting the crew
may have been close to, or at, the bottom, says Owen. The Titan has a maximum
speed of three knots, but would be slower the deeper it goes.
In the case of becoming tangled, or a power or communications failure, the Titan
5. would be equipped with drop weights, which can be released in an emergency,
creating enough buoyancy to take it to the surface. The Titan has an array of
signals, lighting, reflectors and other equipment it can use once on the surface to
attract attention.
Another scenario is that there has been a leak in the pressure hull, in which case
the prognosis is not good, said Alistair Greig, a professor of marine engineering at
University College London.
“If it has gone down to the seabed and can’t get back up under its own power,
options are very limited,” Greig said. “While the submersible might still be intact,
if it is beyond the continental shelf, there are very few vessels that can get that
deep, and certainly not divers.”
Chris Parry, a retired rear admiral with the British Royal Navy, told Sky News a
seabed rescue was “a very difficult operation”.
“The actual nature of the seabed is very undulating. Titanic herself lies in a
trench. There’s lots of debris around. So trying to differentiate with sonar in
particular and trying to target the area you want to search in with another
submersible is going to be very difficult indeed.”
3h ago 08.25 BST
Graham Russell
What is the Titan sub and what can it do?
The Titan is a research and survey submersible that can carry five people, usually
a pilot and four “mission specialists” who can include archaeologists, marine
biologists or anyone who can afford the experience as a tourist.
Made of “titanium and filament wound carbon fibre”, the 6.7-metre (22ft) craft
weighs 10,432kg (23,000lbs), equivalent to about six average-size cars, and is
capable of diving to depths of 4,000 metres (13,120ft) “with a comfortable safety
margin”, according to operator OceanGate.
It uses four electric thrusters to move around, and has a battery of cameras, lights
and scanners to explore its environment. OceanGate says Titan’s viewport is “the
largest of any deep diving submersible” and that its technology provides an
“unrivalled view” of the deep ocean.
It uses Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite technology to communicate, though it is
6. unclear if it was the cause of the loss of contact. OceanGate tweeted last week:
“Without any cell towers in the middle of the ocean, we are relying on @Starlink
to provide the communications we require throughout this year’s 2023 Titanic
expedition.”
It has a 96-hour bottled oxygen supply, as of roughly 6am Sunday local time,
according to David Concannon, an adviser to trip operator OceanGate, which
would in theory last until Thursday morning . However, that limit would be
affected by the breathing rate of those inside the craft, especially if there are
tourists onboard with limited diving experience.
3h ago 07.59 BST
Opening summary
Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the search for the submersible vessel
Titan that went missing during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck.
Rescue teams are continuing the search for Titan which went missing with British
billionaire Hamish Harding among the five people aboard.
Harding, is the chair of private plane firm Action Aviation, which said he is one of
the mission specialists on the five-person OceanGate Expeditions vessel reported
overdue on Sunday evening about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland.
Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood have
been named as two of the other people on the submersible in a family statement.
The other two passengers have been widely reported as being French explorer
Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate chief executive and founder Stockton Rush.
It is understood there were 96 hours – four days – worth of oxygen supply on
board which would have started on Sunday morning.
We’ll provide updates on the search when they are available.
Updated at 10.21 BST
Topics
Reuse this content
The Titanic
7. More on this story
‘We’ve feared this’: veteran
Titanic explorer tells of
concern for missing
submersible
6h ago
Missing Titanic submarine:
US and Canadian teams
search for tourist vessel
3h ago
Titanic tourist
submersible: desperate
search for sub missing with
five onboard
8h ago
8. Most viewed
UK UK politics Education Media Society Law Scotland Wales Northern Ireland
Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning
Sign up for our email
Help
Complaints & corrections
All topics
All writers
News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle
